Materpiscis, the oldest known viviparity (Gogo)
Materpiscis, el vivíparo más antiguo (Gogo)
- Date
- 2008 (fósil de hace unos 380 Ma) · confidence high
- Place
- Gogo Formation, Kimberley, Western Australia, Australia
- Credited to
- John Long and colleagues (Museums Victoria)
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Fossil of a Devonian placoderm fish, with an embryo attached by an umbilical cord to the mother's body, which proves live birth about 380 million years ago. It pushed back the date of internal fertilisation and viviparity in vertebrates by a wide margin.
Published in Nature in 2008. The Gogo Formation preserves Devonian fish in three dimensions, which has allowed soft organs to be described.
What it led to
- evidence of internal fertilisation in placoderms
- reinterpretation of the evolution of reproduction in vertebrates
- studies of the Gogo site with three-dimensional preservation